Page 104 of His Lordship's True Lady
“Whether your paternal family continues to be kept in ignorance is up to you,” Hessian said, stealing a kiss to Lily’s cheek. “Though Clarendon’s offspring are cousins to your sister, and thus have a connection to you regardless of who you decide to be.”
Lily peered up at him, and Hessian could see mental gears turning. She drew away and wandered toward the path.
“You seem to think I have a choice. If I admit that I’m Lilith, Uncle can have me arrested for fraud. If I don’t admit that I’m Lilith, he’ll likely have me arrested anyway. He’ll be the injured party, taken in by his sister’s scheming by-blow, and that’s assuming you can get that farce of a wedding annulled, and then there’s the small matter of Mama’s fortune having gone missing, and if I lay eyes on Oscar again, I will do him a violent injury, which would mean assault charges, and—”
Hessian grasped her by the wrist, lest she work herself into a temper. “Your Uncle Walter is in no position to make demands, Lily. On the way north, I was thrown much into the company of my footman, Kendall.”
“He’s the African?”
“And a canny young fellow, also very much in love. I have Worth making discreet inquiries, but I suspect dear Uncle Walter has tried to make a fortune off enslavement of others like Kendall.”
The puzzle pieces fit neatly, particularly when Hessian added tidbits of remembered gossip to hunches and suppositions.
“Enslaving others is illegal,” Lily said, sinking on to a bench. “Please tell me… but then, Uncle Walter is no respecter of the law. We know this. I hope he lost every farthing, if that was his idea of how to manage funds.”
“He couldn’t touch the Ferguson portion of the trusts,” Hessian said, taking the place beside her, “but I suspect he put every penny he could steal into his illegal businesses, and there’s some indication he was also involved in smuggling. This explains why Oscar knows nothing of his father’s enterprises, why even Worth hears nothing of Walter’s investments. I should have put the facts together sooner, but I was distracted.”
In love qualified as distracted.
Lily gazed out across the park’s verdure, while Hessian resisted the urge to take her hand.
“The Fergusons will ruin Walter,” she said. “They won’t care about the scandal, and I won’t stop them. Lord, I’m half Irish.”
This was why Hessian must bide his time. Lily was coping with too much change, too much upset, for him to ask her for the rest of her life now. He hadn’t a notion how or when or where to propose again. He knew only that now was not the time.
“You are Lily,” Hessian said. “You are the same person who befriended my Daisy, the person whom the Countess of Rosecroft had best not interrogate too closely.”The woman I love.
“Daisy,” Lily said, her smile softening. “She will be quite the handful in no time. She missed you awfully, Hessian. I did too.”
Hessian hugged that admission to his heart and glanced about, for a patient suitor need not be a suitor entirely deprived of kisses. He led Lily behind a massive oak, and she seemed to sense his intent, when a scream pierced the air.
“That’s Daisy,” Lily said. “I’m sure that’s our Daisy.”
She lifted her skirts and took off down the path, Hessian racing beside her.
* * *
The scene Lily found a hundred yards up the path made her blood boil as all the recent revelations had not.
Mrs. Braithwaite had Daisy by the arm, while Worth Kettering stood two yards away, Jacaranda at his side. The widow looked ready to arch her back and hiss, while Daisy’s expression was purely frightened.
No. No, this would not happen.“Turn loose of our Daisy,” Lily said, striding up to Mrs. Braithwaite. “Turn loose of her this instant, or I will see you scorned from here to the Hebrides.”
“How dare you?” Mrs. Braithwaite sneered. “Of all people, you well know where scorn will be directed if this child is kept from me any longer.”
“Of all people?” Lily countered, stepping closer. “I’ve the blood of a duke flowing in my veins, a fortune to command, not one but two earls and a baronet who regard my welfare as a serious matter. Do your worst, madam, but let Daisy go lest I do mine.”
Lily was aware of Hessian standing to the left and one step back. He’d intervene if Mrs. Braithwaite took complete leave of her senses, but only then.
Brilliant man.
“Your ducal family might like to know of a by-blow rusticating in the Midlands,” Mrs. Braithwaite countered. “They might like to know that a woman whom they accepted as a daughter-in-law lifted her—”
Lily relied on the simplest maneuver known to the most inexperienced tavern maid. She peeled Mrs. Braithwaite’s smallest finger from Daisy’s wrist and wrenched back, hard.
Daisy was free, the widow was yelping, and Lily was barely getting started.
“Do you know what it’s like to be a child, alone in the world, frightened for your very life, when adults think only to exploit you? Do you know what it’s like to be so exhausted at the age of nine that you fall asleep on your feet and are punished for it? Do you know what it’s like to have no hope, no joy, no affection for years on end? I will be damned if I’ll let you threaten Daisy with such a fate.”
